Kate Sedley - The Wicked Winter

Maurice Cederwell and Fulk Disney sat decorously apart, each man at either end of a bench drawn as near to the leaping flames as the scorching heat would allow. Adela Empryngham, much to her obvious disgust, was forced to occupy a stool, as was Father Godyer, who had quit his sickbed and, swathed in a blanket, extended his sandalled feet towards the warmth, toasting his toes at the same time as the icy draughts seeped in under the doors and made him shiver. Tostig Steward, Phillipa Talke, Martha Grindcobb and the three kitchen-maids, together with Audrey Lambspringe, had also been summoned to the great hall and were ranged on another bench, dragged from the dais by Jude and Nicholas Capsgrave. These two, with Hamon and Jasper, had been sent for to join the company, but were expected to keep their distance from the circle grouped about the hearth.

As for myself, I occupied a place of honour close to Sir Hugh and facing Ursula Lynom. Mulled wine had been served to everyone on the knight's express orders, and the smell of roasting meat drifted along the passageway from the kitchen.

In spite of the pall of tragedy hanging over Cederwell Manor, supper was to be a festive meal, for the master of the house could at last foresee a brighter future with his chosen woman beside him. Whether or not others shared in his happiness was a moot point, but one which would not concern me. By this time tomorrow, I should be several miles closer to home.

'So,' Sir Hugh continued, slewing round in his chair to look directly at me, 'when did you first entertain suspicions that the friar was not all he seemed?'

Adela Empryngham interrupted, leaning forward to stare earnestly into my face.

'Are you saying, Chapman, that Brother Simeon was really Raymond Shepherd? The villain who raped Jeanette and whom we all thought dead these six years past? How could it possibly be? Are you certain you haven't been dreaming?'

'I'm quite sure,' I answered. 'He made no denial when I charged him with it. But I believe that the knowledge of my discovery, of being forced to face the truth after years of self-deception, finally destroyed his mind.'

'Yet he came to see me,' Father Godyer protested. 'Surely I would have recognised him.'

I shook my head. 'Your sight is poor, Father. Do you recollect, in your chamber, during my first visit to you, I put on your cassock for added warmth? And although your gaze was fixed on me throughout, later you were surprised to find that I was wearing it.'

'Oh dear, oh dear!' The priest rocked himself to and fro in some distress. 'I have to admit that my eyes are not what they used to be.' He cast Sir Hugh a timid, sidelong glance as though expecting to be reprimanded for this failing.

But the knight was busy with thoughts of his own.

'Gerard!' he exclaimed. 'Gerard recognised him, though!'

'I think he may have done.' I set down my mazer, empty now of its contents, and propped my chin in my hand. 'But he wasn't so convinced that he felt able to speak out there and then, in this hall, the night of our arrival. He said something about not being deceived, about not being able to prove anything "at this moment", but that he refused to keep silent for much longer.' I did not add that, at the time, I had assumed him to be talking of Sir Hugh and Mistress Lynom.

It did not seem politic. Instead, I turned to Father Godyer.

'Is it not true, on your own telling, that Raymond Shepherd would have known that Master Empryngham walked in his sleep?'

The priest shrugged his shoulders beneath the enveloping blanket.

'Quite true, yes. It was a widely known fact at Campden. It reached many ears. But I don't understand,' he added pathetically. 'How could Brother Simeon and Raymond Shepherd be one and the same? I saw the latter's body with my own eyes.'

I reached out a hand and laid it on his arm, where its outline showed beneath the blanket.

'And by your own admission, his body was all you did see. You had previously told me that you identified the corpse by the clothes, and when I suggested to you, this afternoon, that the head was crushed in, you did not deny it.'

'But they were Raymond Shepherd's clothes!' Father Godyer protested.

'Of course. According to Simeon — for I cannot think of him by any other name — he shared a barn with a Dominican friar, the first night that he was on the run. No doubt they got talking. The friar described his life on the road, where he came from, what he did. And then, again according to Simeon whose word I have no reason to doubt, the holy man died in his sleep. Simeon saw his chance of escape and took it. He changed garments with the friar, crushed the man's head with a stone or whatever else happened to be handy in the barn, and left the body in a ditch. The gamble worked, and everyone believed Raymond Shepherd to have cheated the gallows, but nevertheless to have come by his just deserts.'

Adela Empryngham buried her face in her hands for a moment before looking up with tears trickling down her cheeks.

'If only I hadn't quarrelled with Gerard, if I'd stayed with him on Tuesday night, Simeon — Raymond — wouldn't have been able to lure him to his death while we were all asleep. It's true, isn't it?' she demanded, her voice rising on a note of hysteria.

Martha got up and hurried over to her, clasping the younger woman in a comforting embrace.

'There, there, my dear. You weren't to know. You mustn't blame yourself. Evil is the fault of the evil-doer. It can't be laid to the charge of anyone else.'

There was a general mumble of assent. It is a comfortable doctrine, and one which I more than half believe myself. We are all given the choice between right and wrong in this world.

And yet… And yet…

Mistress Lynom cut in with a question which had plainly been troubling her for several minutes, ever since it had entered her mind.

'But how could this man possibly have murdered Jeanette when you, Roger, were with him even before he entered the manor?'

Everyone looked at me for an explanation.

'I was certainly with him,' I acknowledged, 'when he approached Cederwell late on Tuesday afternoon. But, by my reckoning, he was here much earlier in the day, and that was when he murdered Lady Cederwell.'

'Earlier?' Tostig Steward demanded, voicing the general bewilderment.

'Yes,' I insisted. 'The tinker who was here this morning informed me that he had spent Monday night at Woodspring Priory and so, according to his own story, had Simeon. But neither man recognised the other, so one of them was lying.

I could see no good reason why the tinker should do so, and I already had my doubts about the friar. I decided that he could well have left the priory the previous evening, and not very early Tuesday morning as he claimed, provided there was somewhere on the road where he could have passed the night. Mistress Lynom says there is a farmhouse some three miles distant from Lynom Hall which, although moated, possesses two outhouses standing beyond the pale and open to the track which runs south to Woodspring. Furthermore,' I added, nodding significantly at Ursula, 'Dame Judith mentioned having seen a holy man pass by on Tuesday morning before she was taken upstairs to the solar, a long time before I caught up with Simeon on a two-mile journey which should have taken him little over an hour to accomplish.'

Mistress Lynom gave a crack of laughter. 'So the old witch and her prying eyes have some use after all! Who would have thought it?'

Phillipa Talke intervened. 'But none of us here saw Brother Simeon until he arrived with you. How could he possibly have gained access to my Lady without our knowing?'

Sir Hugh nodded in agreement, as did Tostig Steward and Martha Grindcobb.

'True. How do you explain that, Roger Chapman?'

'Very simply. Lady Cederwell met him on the road.' I smiled at Audrey Lambspringe. 'You told me that on Tuesday your mistress took a basket with her to the tower because she was going to visit Ulnoth, as she did two or three times each month during the winter. I should hazard therefore that she met with Simeon on his way to see her, and turned back with him. They went directly to the tower by the path through the scrubland, so avoiding being seen by anyone in the house or stables. At that point, either Lady Cederwell had not recognised Simeon, or neither had recognised the other.' I shrugged. 'We shall never know now, but there must have come a moment when the truth dawned on one or both of them… After which, we can only guess at what happened.